


Synergist

by orphan_account



Category: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Loss of Virginity, One True Pairing, Romance, Teenagers, Wordcount: 5.000-10.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-13
Updated: 2011-05-13
Packaged: 2017-11-06 10:36:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/417893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre-phase sex, post-Volterra voicemails, and the resultant fallout.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Synergist

**Author's Note:**

> Twilight and all its recognizable situations belong to Stephenie Meyer.

Her cell just keeps ringing, so Bella hides it under her pillow. Then she sticks it between her mattress and the box springs. She wants to turn it off, or better yet throw it out the window, but she can't, because Edward might call, and if he does and she doesn't answer he'll be at her house within ten minutes, even though he's gone hunting. She'll have to explain, then, why she threw the phone away, unless she can come up with a convincing enough lie, and she knows she's a terrible liar. Edward will just buy her a new phone, but it'll be a nicer one, more expensive, with better features and unlimited minutes and she'll hate it. So between the mattress and the box springs the phone goes.

He leaves voicemail after voicemail, and the messages kill her. She knows she should delete them the second she hears the automated voice say, "Next message," but she can't, she just can't. Instead she listens, tears running silently down her cheeks. Some are pleading and some are loving and some are threatening and some are drunken—she doesn't even know how he _can_ get drunk; it must take cases of booze—and some are so furious that they make her want to curl into a self-protective ball, but she can't do that, because if she does then Edward will ask her, again, if she's sure, and she can't stand to answer again. She _is_ sure, she _is,_ but when she forces herself to stand straight while she listens, the words hit like blows against her heart… the heart he couldn't give back to her, the one Edward took away and then gave back and that now seems to be missing something. Someone.

It isn't just her heart, though. Somehow he ended up inhabiting her body from the inside and now it doesn't belong to her anymore. It used to be just hers, like her mind is just hers, safe from even the importunate nature of Edward's gift, and now… It keeps on telling her to do things that she doesn't want to do. At least, she doesn't think she wants to do them… God. If it would only _shut up_ she might be able to think but her body doesn't know how to do that. It just gives her orders she won't obey and makes her bones ache with longings she won't satisfy and everything is _so messed up_.

Bella wishes with all her heart that she could take it back.

No she doesn't.

( * * * )

It started when she handed him a wrench.

Jacob held her hand on a regular basis by that point, but this time she'd been watching the muscles of his arms move beneath the smooth skin as he worked and idly wondering what they would feel like if she touched them. When he reached to take the wrench, something sparked between them, igniting a feeling she almost didn't recognize. Hadn't her body died, when its heart was removed? Apparently not. Jacob seemed to notice, though, that her hand didn't want to let go, and he wasn't complaining.

"Can I have it?" he asked, looking into her eyes instead of at the wrench.

"I don't know," she answered honestly.

Something flickered over his face, but he smoothed it into composure almost immediately. "I'm not sure what you'll be able to do with a wrench, Bells, unless it's using it as a paperweight or something, but I guess you can keep it."

She forced a laugh and allowed her fingers to uncurl under his grasp. For a second, their palms pressed together around the cool metal. "You're right. It's better off here with someone who knows how to use it."

He looked at her for a little while longer, and then turned to the motorcycle. This time, though, things were different. The air seemed to coagulate in her throat and chest, viscous as honey, and she couldn't speak through the sweetness. His movements, usually so confident when he worked, slowed, then became hesitant, and he had to repeat the simplest task two, three times.

She went home and stared, sightless, out the window—always closed and locked, now—for half the night. It was a nice change from nightmares.

The next day, she wondered if she should go to La Push at all. She felt as if she was standing on the edge of a vast precipice, and that any move, forward or back, could lead to a plunge from which there would be no recovery. She went, though. A niggling curiosity wouldn't allow her to do otherwise. She wanted to trace the electricity that had shot through them both back to its source, and see if it could provide something vital, as vital as Jacob had become to her well-being.

That afternoon, as the daylight faded and became gray dusk, the pouring rain dripping off the tin roof of the garage while she watched, she edged closer and closer while the hours progressed, until she sat cross-legged barely an inch from his thigh. He acted like he didn't notice, teasing and getting her to help even though she still couldn't remember the right measurements for the sockets. The only difference was, he didn't touch her. She wondered if he regretted the day before, if maybe she had misinterpreted the signs he'd sent her way before then. After all, she hardly had much experience from which to draw. She had never been _friends_ with a boy before, even.

When it got too dark to see what he was working on, he lit the work lamp and lay flat on his back under the motorcycle, doing mysterious things to the gears and her gut. She looked at his biceps, the corded muscles of his neck, and the nimble way his fingers put things back the way they belonged. His shirt tail rode up as he reached and lifted various parts to their places. She didn't recognize the darts of jittery energy buzzing in her stomach until she found herself contemplating running her tongue across the hollow between his collarbones to gather the sweat pooled there. Then she understood.

Almost of its own accord, one of her fingers drifted to touch the upraised wrist closest to her, circling the bones and tracing upward across his index finger. And back down again. Up, to his thumb, and back down again. Two fingers, this time, up to his middle finger, back down again, his ring finger, his pinky. All five of her fingers, drawing lines down all five of his. Up, down. Up, down.

He wasn't moving. She wasn't sure if he was even breathing. He seemed focused on her hand, which trembled slightly while moving along its path. She inched even closer, her leg coming into contact with his, and he finally breathed, sucking in air like his lungs had forgotten how to work. She dared to meet his eyes, then, and saw they were wide, watching her for a cue. Bella didn't know which signal she should send, but she knew she liked the way his hot, slightly rougher skin felt under her own, and she liked the throb between her legs and the pounding in her throat. She liked not feeling dead for once.

Hesitantly, she slid her hand down the inside of his wrist, all the way to the inside of his elbow, and drew a circle there with the pad of her index finger. Jacob swallowed and turned his hand to grasp her forearm.

Now it was her turn to go immobile, as he ran his fingers down to hers, lifting her hand so that they were palm-to-palm once again, and threading their fingers together. His thumb moved between them, rubbing across her palm. They both stared at their joined hands. The sweetness in the air had returned, and Bella felt her chest heave with the effort of inhaling as it buzzed in the back of her throat and behind her eyes.

She stirred at last, still not knowing what she would do until she did it, leaning across Jacob in slow motion until finally her entire upper body lay on his. She tucked her face into the crook of his neck, sighing into the frantic beat of his pulse beneath her lips. He lifted his free hand to cradle the back of her head. To her surprise, their proximity didn't feel awkward at all. In fact, the longer she remained there, the better it felt—the more _natural_ it felt.

 _This is right,_ her body told her, as it relaxed against his long, hard-muscled form. _This is safe._

That was certainly a message it had never sent before, with…

But she wasn't thinking about that.

"Bells?" Jacob asked after a long time, during which they remained motionless except for the lift and fall of their chests against each other.

"Mm?" She was so comfortable she would have fallen asleep, except that she was waiting for him to make a move.

He wasn't going to take that step, not yet. "My dad's gonna be yelling out the door any minute now. I'm kinda surprised he hasn't already. We'd better go before he sends someone after us."

"Don't wanna move," she mumbled.

The muscles of his cheek moved against her forehead as he smiled. "I don't want you to move. But I _do_ want us not to get in trouble so you can come back soon. Okay?"

She'd never been so close to a real boy before—Edward was so unreal, in so many ways, now—and something about the scent of his skin and the vibration of his voice made her want to cling and never let go. Reluctantly, she raised her body up and away, trembling as a wave of cold hit her with the deprivation.

He saw it, but misinterpreted the cause. "Are you okay? I'm sorry, did I—"

"I'm okay," she said, and she meant, _I think I might be okay, someday,_ but he took it at face value and grinned at her.

"Good."

That night, instead of running after Edward, she lay underneath Jacob, and his hands touched her everywhere.

The next day, when she came over, he grabbed her hand to lead her from the truck to the garage. He had done the exact same thing dozens of times, but this time she almost couldn't wait until they were hidden from view before she turned into his embrace. His breath caught when she pivoted against him.

"Bells…"

She wrapped her arms around his waist. The gaping hole in her chest was still there, but it didn't hurt when it was pressed to Jacob's body. He protected her from the assault of the elements just by standing in their way. She turned her face into his chest and breathed. Then she realized she _could_ breathe.

He was still waiting for an answer, so she tried. "I—this is—I didn't have any bad dreams last night, and usually I do, but this—I think it made me not have them."

He put his hands on her back, fingers spread wide to cover as much of her as they could. "You usually have bad dreams?" She nodded, keeping her eyes closed as she gathered up the hem of his t-shirt to brush the skin under it with her knuckles. Jacob bent his head until his mouth hovered less than an inch from her ear. "I'll do anything you want. Just... let me know."

 _Anything you want._ Bella wasn't stupid enough to not understand what he offered. He was saying, _whatever I have to give is yours._ She had been mindful, so far, not to give false hope where she was certain none could be found. If she did this—if she asked him to give her the gift of his body in addition to his time and his sunny good nature—she would be the worst kind of user.

Unless he got something in return.

"Would it… would it help… Jake, do _you_ want…" She bit her lip, unable to find the right phrasing.

He turned his face so that their cheeks brushed. His lips shaped the word against her temple. "Yeah." And then he buried his face in her hair and said, "Really bad."

She raised her hand to the back of his head. "Okay. Then I do too."

The words had been spoken, the line crossed. He waited, and she did too, motionless but for her fingers stroking his hair. At last, he kissed her neck. They both sighed as another boundary dissolved. She turned her head, and his mouth was already there to meet hers.

( * * * )

"Bella, I know you're there, goddammit. Pick up the fucking phone."

"End of message. To delete, press seven. To save the message in the archives, press nine."

_beep_

"Message will be saved for fifteen days. Next message."

"I miss you. I miss you so much. I think I keep calling because I just want to hear your voice and at least you haven't taken it off your voicemail message. I didn't understand, honey, what would happen. I'm sorry I said what I did, before you left. I wish you would just... I didn't mean it, you have to know that now. Why won't you..."

"End of message. To delete, press seven. To save the message in the archives, press nine."

_beep_

"Message will be saved for fifteen days. Next message."

"You're so fucked up. You know that, right? You're about to kill yourself and you're calling it true love, Bella. This isn't a Shakespeare play."

"End of message. To delete, press seven. To save the message in the archives, press nine."

_beep_

"Message will be saved for fifteen days. Next message."

"I'm a goddamned stalker, aren't I? I've turned into the guy parents warn their daughters about. I don't know what else to do, honey. I don't. I think, okay, I'm going to stop calling, but then I wonder, what if there's still something that could change your mind? Something that maybe I haven't said yet that'll keep you from committing suicide? And then I just… pick up the phone."

"End of message. To delete, press seven. To save the message in the archives, press nine."

_beep_

( * * * )

They didn't go very far, that day. He sat on the ancient couch and she sat on his lap and they kissed until their lips were reddened and tender and Bella's tongue knew every slope and crevice of Jacob's mouth as intimately as it knew her own. She had never felt so wonderful in her _life,_ the duration of which had offered very few physical pleasures. Her body usually ended up accidentally hurting itself. On the drive home down La Push Road, Bella hovered her fingertips over her swollen mouth and wondered if her body could fix her, instead.

The next day, she couldn't concentrate in class at all. Every minute crept by with agonizing tedium until at last the final bell rang and she could return to La Push. To Jacob.

For a week, they stuck with kissing, although Jacob grew bolder pretty quickly and moved his lips and tongue across her neck and ears and collarbones with surprising deftness, considering his confession that he'd never done this with anyone else. (He'd said it to make her stop worrying about her own possible ineptitude, and she wasn't so delusional that she didn't wonder if he was lying about _that_ , at least.) In between make-out sessions, they still talked, about Embry ditching his friends and hanging out with Sam Uley's bizarre Neighborhood Watch, Teen Version, and about Becca still refusing to fly home even though she'd been married for over a year and they had yet to see Ioane in person, and about… oh, everything, exactly as it always had been. Bella was vaguely surprised to find that the latest wrinkle in their relationship didn't make things awkward at all. If anything, it was even easier, because now she wasn't pretending she didn't know exactly what Jacob wanted from her.

Jacob was unbelievably careful with her. She couldn't decide if he was afraid he would scare her off or that he really did think she was that fragile compared to him. Maybe it was both. In any case, his hands were so cautious on their way that she barely felt it, the first time he moved them beneath her shirt and up to her breasts. She arched her back to push into his palms, whimpering and biting his earlobe as she did. He had a hard time with the hooks for a moment, but he was used to figuring out those sorts of things and almost immediately had her bra undone.

Bella made a shocked sound when he brushed her hardened nipples with his thumbs. The simple contact had her legs trembling within seconds. She concealed the fact by straddling Jacob and hiding her face in his shoulder as she clung to his neck. She couldn't hide the noises that came out of her throat, though, and when he grew bold enough to lay her down on her back, lift her clothes out of the way, and replace his hands with his mouth, she turned her face into the couch to muffle her cries.

When she reluctantly pulled away, because it was getting late and they had to work on homework sometime, she saw ten crescent-shaped cuts on his shoulders, five on each side. "Oh my God, Jake," she said in horror. "I'm so sorry!"

He laughed at her. "I don't mind, Bells, trust me." In point of fact, he seemed proud of them. He didn't put his shirt back on for the rest of the evening, claiming he was too hot, but she suspected he liked knowing anyone could see proof of his effect on her. (She didn't admit that she liked it too.)

Bella dreamed all night, and woke up vibrating with unfulfilled desire.

"Please, Jake, please," she begged that afternoon, writhing beneath him in an agony of want.

"Please what, honey?" he whispered in her ear, and she flinched at the burn of his breath. He got _so hot_ when they did this, it felt like she was embracing a fire sometimes.

She was too turned on to watch her words. "Please don't stop. Just… keep going?"

He slipped his hand into the waistband of her jeans, brushing the backs of his fingers back and forth over the skin of her belly. She groaned in mingled frustration and excitement. "I don't want to stop, but Quil's coming."

"Did you talk to him before or something?" she asked, curious.

"I can hear him walking down the road. Can't you?"

Bella listened hard, but heard nothing but the sound of her own harsh breathing and his. She wound her fingers in Jacob's hair and pulled him down for one last kiss before sitting up and putting her shirt back into place.

While they waited, a thought occurred to her. She hadn't seen Quil in ages, not since before Embry had gone uber-weird on them. "Jacob… Have you been ditching your friends to hang out with me?"

He shrugged a little with a sheepish smile. "I can't exactly do what I want to do with you if they're around, Bells."

"Yeah, but…" She trailed off. Impossible to imagine a future in which she and Jacob weren't best friends, now; impossible to imagine _not_ having his hands and mouth on her regularly, yes… But she'd been given ample proof that nothing lasted forever, and if she separated Jacob from his friends, they'd resent both Jacob and her. That wasn't good. If she'd had friends, human friends, when Edward left… "You shouldn't do that. We should hang out with him. Because Embry's all strange now and it's not like there are a lot of people for Quil to pick and choose from on the rez." At his furrowed brow, she teased, "Don't worry, you'll still get plenty of time to fool around with me."

So that became another of her "responsible, semi-adult" strictures, along with thrice-weekly homework focus: hang out with a third person, most often Quil. And, just as she'd promised, Jacob still got plenty of time to fool around with her. He didn't know what to do the first time she let him take off her pants, but he learned fast once she showed him the important places. He was good at watching her and gauging her reactions in every other way; it was no surprise that ability translated in this area, too.

"Like this?" he asked, thumb rubbing in maddeningly slow circles on the spot to which she'd directed it.

"Yes," she gasped, "Just like that… No no no—" as he moved it away, "No, go back and don't stop." He obeyed, and when he slipped a finger inside her, she sank her teeth into his shoulder to keep quiet as she came on his hand.

"Holy shit," he muttered in awe, eyes widened.

For once she didn't complain about his language. _Holy shit_ just about covered it. She looked at his shoulder and saw stars as her head went light. "Oh crap, Jake, I think I drew…" The teeth marks scabbed over, filled in, and disappeared before her eyes. "Blood," she breathed, disbelieving.

He glanced over but couldn't get a good line of sight. "I don't see anything. It doesn't hurt."

"It's gone." Bella kissed the place where she'd wounded him, but there was no indication it had ever existed.

( * * * )

"Jake?"

A long pause, filled with incredulity, then, "Bella? What the hell?"

"Jake, I…"

A longer pause, broken only by the sound of quiet sobbing.

"Honey, tell me what to do. I'll do anything."

"I don't know what to tell you!"

"… Yeah, I get that."

More sobs.

A similar sort of noise on the other end of the line.

"Oh God. Oh, Jake. Is it… Are you…"

"What the hell else am I supposed to do, Bella?"

"I don't know! I don't know. I _hate_ when you're sad, I hate it so much…"

"Well, you better fucking get used to it."

"I'm so sorry, Jake, so sorry, I don't know what else to say but I'm sorry. I wish I hadn't screwed everything up so bad."

"You mean you wish you hadn't screwed me."

"No I don't! I don't… I don't wish that. You were the one who wanted to end it, not me. Do you? Wish we never—"

"No. I'll never think that way."

"I think Edward knows."

Utter disbelief. "You were going to try to keep it a secret from him?"

"I haven't talked to him about it! It's… It means a lot to him. My 'virtue' or whatever."

"If you're talking about your virginity, then maybe he should know he's getting damaged goods. From his point of view, not mine."

Another silence.

"Holy shit. That's why you haven't told him? Because you're afraid he'll dump you if you're not pure or whatever? Here's a news flash for him, Bella: _you were broken up._ He already dumped you once. Remember that?"

"I don't think he'll understand. They're kind of frozen in time, when they get changed, and back then it was a huge deal."

"Yeah, because they didn't have birth control and women were property! I've had to listen to Rachel rant about it way too many times. Have you stopped to consider that he was turned before women were even allowed to vote? You want to be married to a guy who thinks that way?"

"Married?"

"I seriously can't believe you. You want to be with this guy forever and it's like you don't even know him. Any guy from the early 1900s would have _married his girlfriend,_ Bella, before he lived with her. Hell, I don't know if they even called them girlfriends back then. I think they went straight to fiancée!"

"…Married?"

( * * * )

When she showed up at the garage, Jacob didn't come out to meet her. That was her first clue something was wrong. When she stepped inside, he wasn't working—a bigger clue—just polishing his tools with an old rag over and over and over again.

"Hey, Jake." She walked closer, and then crouched to meet his eyes. "What's up?" He shrugged, but the corners of his mouth turned down and his eyebrows were practically a single line. Bella pushed a little. "C'mon, _something's_ wrong."

He struggled with himself for a moment—the internal debate strong on his face—and then finally told her. "It's Quil."

"What's wrong? Is he sick?" Bella sat down next to him, arm around his waist even though, with his recent growth spurt, that meant she had to stretch up a little.

"No. At least, I don't think so. He did the same thing Embry did. It's so weird, Bells. He disappeared for the past four days, and when I saw him today he just nodded, like we were strangers, and then went to sit with Embry, Paul, and Jared."

"What a jerk. I hope he dies." Bella spoke without thinking, but she realized she meant it. Quil had hurt Jacob, and anything that hurt Jacob was _not allowed._

"It _is_ kind of a dick move." He shook his head. "I'm worried about him and Embry, though. What if it really _is_ some kind of cult? And when I ask my dad, he's the opposite of helpful. 'You'll understand when you need to, son.' I guess that's going to be when I'm ninety."

Jacob tried to smile, but it was a poor effort. Bella leaned upward to comfort him with a kiss. When their lips touched, he responded far more forcefully than normal, digging his hand into her hair and yanking her into his lap. Bella sucked in a surprised breath, but when he pulled her head back and almost _made_ her open her mouth to him, her body surprised her with a sudden rush of arousal that made her go weak in his arms. When she maneuvered herself to straddle him, he tore off her shirt and bra so quickly she half-expected to hear buttons and hooks popping free. He never wore a shirt anymore, and when they were skin-to-skin she rubbed herself against his torso like a cat. With a groan, he pulled her even more tightly to him, hands rough on her back.

Somehow, they worked their way over to the couch and he lay down with her on top of him, kissing and touching and doing all the things they'd done before, but then Bella did something she hadn't done before. When she caressed him, instead of pulling back to watch, she scooted down until he was almost inside her.

Jacob moaned, high-pitched and helpless, between his teeth when she pushed against him. "Bells—Bella—don't do that, you can— _shit,_ oh, shit, honey, that's so good, but you can get pregnant even just from that—"

"No I can't," she corrected him. "I got on the pill a while ago, when we started—oh. Oh, Jake. Oh, _Jake._ " He was inside her, not deep enough to hurt, yet, but enough for her to surround him. Her thighs trembled with the intensity of the sensation. "Kiss me?"

Obediently, he pulled her to him, lips ardent against her own. He cupped her breasts with both hands, gently caressing as Bella rotated her hips, grinding herself against his stomach until at last her orgasm overwhelmed her. She heard herself sobbing as if from far away while she convulsed. It felt so different with him inside her, so much _better,_ and she wanted to give him that too. She didn't want this day to be the one he remembered because he lost his other best friend. So before the aftershocks faded she pushed down, through the burning pain, biting her lip to remind herself to remain silent, and took him all the way inside.

When she was able to open her eyes and look up to check on him, she saw that he had _his_ eyes closed and his mouth was moving, but no sound was coming out. His face was covered in sweat. "Jake? Are you okay?"

He took one deep breath. Two. He struggled to speak, she could tell, but at last he just groaned, "Bella…"

A thrill of satisfaction shot through the smarting. _That's right. Best day of your life, and it's because of me._ His hands were so tightly clamped on her hips that she couldn't stir. "Is it okay if I move?"

He nodded, but didn't loosen his grip, so she overlaid his hands with her own and stroked them. "Okay. It's okay. Let me do this part, all right?"

Finger by finger, he released her, and she lifted herself up and slowly lowered back down again. It hurt like hell but she kept her face turned away, and his eyes were still closed anyway. She did it again. This time he lifted his hips with her, and it didn't hurt nearly as badly. Jacob's entire body was shuddering beneath her, and that made her feel really good about herself, for maybe the first time ever. _I can do this for you. I can help when you're sad and it's just this easy._ Twice more she slid up and down, and then he couldn't hold out any longer and bucked uncontrollably into her, saying her name over and over again until at last she felt hot pulsing deep inside her. Unable to stay upright, she collapsed down on his heaving chest. He stroked her back, soothing away the last of her distress. Bella, finally able to concentrate on what she was feeling instead of what she was doing, felt sudden tears sting her eyes as tenderness washed over her.

"You okay?" Jacob asked.

Bella kissed his chest. "Yeah. How about you?"

He laughed. The giddy delight in the sound made her heart lighten—and that was when she realized her heart was exactly where it belonged. "I'm way better than okay."

When she got home, though, the hole in her chest was back. She cried herself to sleep that night.

( * * * )

Bella stares out her window, but instead of her own reflection she sees Jacob, face derisive, while his voice comes through the phone. "You sure as hell didn't see that one coming, did you?"

"No," she croaks. Her heart is going to thud right out of her chest. Going back to Edward was one thing. Agreeing to _marry_ Edward is something else entirely. Marrying… it's supposed to be forever. She already promised herself she would never do it unless she was _so sure,_ and she's not sure at all. Edward won't do anything more than kiss her, and she's grown to need far more than kisses. If he'll turn her into a vampire… But she already agreed she wouldn't make him do that.

If this happens, she'll never have the option of leaving, or of maybe going back to Jacob if she can just figure out how.

She's so confused.

"Maybe that isn't what he wants," she quavers, but she knows she's wrong.

"Yeah. Right. Go ahead and ask him, when he comes back from whatever he's doing. Maybe finishing off some endangered species. We find the carcasses of their kills, sometimes. It's disgusting what they do to those animals, Bells. It's not like they bury them. They just… leave them out there. They don't even bother using the pelts."

 _Vegetarians._ Except they're not, because they can't be. They suck blood to stay alive. _The world's biggest leech._

( * * * )

Later, Jacob told her that it took far longer than anyone expected for him to phase the first time, because he was so happy with her. Bella was perversely proud of the fact. Later.

Because when it happened, she wasn't anything other than terrified, standing and screaming in the middle of the road as the giant reddish wolf which had—she thought—just eaten her boyfriend snarled at a wide-eyed Quil and Embry, who had merely been walking past in the other direction.

The cat was out of the bag of course, so they decided there was no point in keeping anything from her. When she found out about the pack mind, she wanted to die of embarrassment, but after Jacob explained that seeing her in his thoughts had allowed the rest of them to trust her discretion, she was grateful. At the first get-together she attended, Paul made the crack about "world's biggest leech," and the nickname stuck.

Sex was the most heady, most wonderful thing that had ever happened to either Jake or Bella, by their mutual admission, and they did it as often as possible between patrols and school and attacks from Victoria. It turned out to be far more often than Bella would have thought possible—but then she'd underestimated the determination of a sixteen-year-old boy to get laid on a regular basis. It still wasn't often enough. They were starting to fight more, and talk less, as late nights took their toll. She managed to maneuver an invitation to stay on the reservation for spring break, but then she _still_ never saw him, and she started to remember how badly it hurt to be alone.

Boredom drove Bella to the cliff. She'd watched the boys jump dozens of times, and even gone a few herself, though always side-by-side with Jacob. This time, she went alone, and lived to regret it when the water almost took her out. Jacob had to pull her ashore and resuscitate her, and then he hugged her so tightly she almost passed out all over again.

Alice was waiting behind the door when she got home.

( * * * )

Bella paces back and forth, clutching her phone in her hands. After half an hour, she's sick of her own dithering and dials Edward's number.

"Hello, love," he answers on the first ring.

"How's it going?" she asks, then rolls her eyes at her own idiocy.

"Well, thank you. Are you all right?"

"Are you going to ask me to marry you?" she blurts.

There's a very long silence, during which she knows he's frozen in shock. Her heart turns to stone in her chest.

"Alice?" he breathes at last, and Bella laughs, a shrill, hysterical sound.

"No, Edward. Jacob."

"You shouldn't talk to him when he always upsets you so," he says automatically, the way he's said it a hundred times before. "I have the ring in my pocket. I've been waiting for the right moment."

"If I married you, would you ever change me?"

"I want to spend the rest of your days with you, love."

"That's not an answer, Edward."

"Bella… You just don't know, you _can't_ , how dull things get after fifty years or so…"

She can guess, and it's one of the reasons she didn't insist before. The way the hours weighed so heavily after his departure has opened her eyes to time's capacity for boredom. "Is that why you're interested in me? Because I broke up the monotony?"

"I'm far more than interested in you. You are my life."

 _Because his life is over,_ Jacob whispers in her mind.

( * * * )

"You don't understand, Jacob! He'll _die_!"

"He already did!" Jacob shouted back, so close to phasing, hands trembling and lip curling into a snarl.

"No he didn't! He's different, but he's not dead, and I can't let him kill himself just because I was an idiot."

Jacob shook his head, tears pooling in his eyes. "Don't do this. Don't go. You could die, too. These... these..."

"Volturi," Alice supplied from her corner of the living room.

"Volturi, if they tear up _vampires,_ what do you think they'll do to you? To a human who knows about them?"

Bella directed a fearful glance at Alice, who nodded reluctantly in answer to the question she must have seen on Bella's face, or maybe in the future. "It's true, Bella, that unless you become a vampire they'll probably kill you if they know about you."

Bella wavered.

"We need to go now if we're going to save him," Alice warned. "And it's not as if you didn't already plan on becoming one of us anyway."

Jacob grew even more livid at that, face turning purple with rage and terror. "Bella, if you do this... If you go after him..."

"What?" Bella asked, dread in the pit of her stomach like a rock.

Jacob shook his head. "Then we're through. We're done. I'll know your choice and it won't be me."

"No!" Bella darted across the room, arms outstretched, but he stepped back, and she stopped as suddenly as if he had slapped her. "No, Jake, you can't mean that. I'm not choosing him, I'm just not letting him die. It's different."

His expression was so distant he didn't even look like her Jacob anymore. "I mean it. You've as good as said that if you go you'll have to be turned. You think I'll want to be with you after your heart stops? Think again."

Bella burst into humiliatingly loud sobs, unable to hold back. "I can't stay here and not help! Don't make this something it's not!"

"I'm making this exactly what it _is,_ Bella. Choose to stay here with me or choose him. That's what this is." She kept crying, and his face softened fractionally. He stepped closer and said, "Don't go. Please."

She went.

Alice hid her from the Volturi, whisking her away as soon as Edward caught sight of her and knew she was alive. He met them on the outskirts of town and they drove back in near silence. But when he begged to have her back, and she remembered that she didn't have Jacob anymore to shield her from the cold, she accepted. She never wanted to have her own actions affect the permanency of another's affections again, and she knew nothing she could do would ever accidentally turn Edward away from her.

( * * * )

"Edward, I don't think you know me at all if you can ask me to do that."

"Let me speak to you in person about this."

Bella hesitates, but then she remembers how Jacob pointed out the way proximity to Edward always makes her fuzzy. "I don't think that's a good idea. I can't think clearly if you're too close and I really, really need to be clear on this."

"Bella, don't you think that if you're willing to commit to all eternity with me, that a wedding ceremony is nothing but a slight redundancy?"

Bella gapes, stunned by the accuracy of his observation, but then she remembers she _wasn't_ going to commit to all eternity, she just let Jacob think she was in the hopes that he would stop trying to change her mind.

"Please, let me come talk to you about this."

Her fight-or-flight instinct has been triggered. Bella Swan was never much of one for fighting. "I can't. I won't. I won't get married," she squeaks out, and hangs up.

( * * * )

When she came back, everything was awful. She loved Edward still, in some ways, and when he explained how he'd done what he'd done to protect her, she was able to justify it in her own head, particularly when he revealed how he'd never actually taken her belongings from her home, but hidden them under her floorboards. She tried to explain this to Jacob, so that he would know she was okay, but he was having none of it.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," was his constant refrain, so much so that she wondered out loud if maybe he'd like a bumper sticker or a t-shirt with the phrase emblazoned across it.

"You're the one who broke up with me!" she shrieked late one night, so loudly that Charlie knocked on her door a few seconds later. When she reassured her dad, she returned to the phone she had dropped on the bed and whispered fiercely, "You did this to me, not the other way around, Jacob."

"I thought you were going to die!" he protested, just as fiercely. "I was trying to stop you from throwing yourself off another cliff."

"Well, you're the one who forced me to make a choice. 'Either let your ex-boyfriend die or stay here.' It was kind of an ultimatum, you jerk."

"Bells—"

" _Don't call me that._ "

"I can't even call you by your nickname anymore?"

"You used to—it used to mean you loved me."

"I do still love you."

"No you don't. If you did, you wouldn't have broken _up_ with me. People don't just throw whole relationships away if they love each other, Jacob."

"It was stupid. I was stupid. I admit it. I'm really, really sorry. I don't want us to break up."

"I want someone who'll never make me leave."

"I never would again." He was getting more desperate, probably sensing the way she was distancing herself internally. He was always able to read her far too well. "I swear, Bella, I never would do it again. I'd never leave you, either. Just give me another chance."

She sucked in air past the physical pain in her chest. It wasn't a hole, but it was a sharp, stabbing hurt. For a moment, she thought about what he was saying, thought about giving him another chance. She missed him so much. But then she remembered the hard-edged, unyielding look on his face. _Then we're through. We're done._ Fear overwhelmed her. She had made a decision, which was always the hardest thing, and right or wrong she wanted to stick with it, just to save herself the agony of making another. Miserably, she confessed, "I've already given Edward one of those, and I think he'll do better with it."

"You've got to be fucking kidding me."

She hung up.

( * * * )

Bella drives up to La Push with uncharacteristic speed, pushing her truck to its limits and ignoring its protesting and shaking. She pulls up in front of the Blacks' house and then stares at its door in confusion. It's nearly midnight. What's she going to do, bang on the windows till Jacob lets her in, assuming he even wants to do so?

She digs her phone out of her pocket and stares at the display, trying to figure out her next step, but she can't think. Her mind has gone blank with total and complete panic. Marriage. Marriage and vampirism and...

"Bella?"

She starts and shrieks a little. Jacob is in the cab with her. She almost forgot how he can move just as quickly as a vampire.

"Why are you here?" he asks, but she can see in his eyes he knows.

"I don't want to get married," she whimpers, and throws herself at him, pressing her face to his neck and embracing him as tightly as she can.

He caresses her hair and kisses the top of her head. His hands aren't steady, but his voice is. "Okay. You don't have to. But if you're going to let him turn you it seems kind of dumb not to marry him too. It comes down to the same thing."

"That's what he said, but then he said he'll never change me!"

"Huh. Guess that's something," he says in a tone of grudging respect.

He smells good and he feels good and she hasn't felt good in weeks, so she doesn't let go. "I didn't ask him to anyway... Jake, I've been really cold."

"I'm not surprised; you've been cuddling with an ice sculpture. How does that even work?"

She can hear the defeat in her response. "I wrap myself in tons of blankets before he gets in bed with me." He starts laughing incredulously. After a second, she can't help but join him. "I know, it sounds so stupid—"

"Bella, it sounds stupid because it _is._ Really, really stupid."

She wants to argue but she can't. Instead, she runs her nose up and down his neck. Finally she whispers, "I miss you. I miss us. I miss this."

He tilts her head back so he can meet her gaze. "I miss this too. Can you just tell me one thing?"

"Yeah." Bella wants to kiss him so badly that she almost can't talk, but she forces herself to wait.

"Why are you with him?"

The words are right there, on the surface, easily spoken because they're so fundamental. "I want love that's certain and'll last forever."

He nods, digesting this. "Okay. But Bella, what if it's the wrong _kind_ of love, and you're _stuck_ in it forever?"

Bella thinks about it.

"And... what if what you've got with me is the right kind of love? I know I can't promise you it'll last forever, but..."

"Hold on a second," she interrupts. "Just let me think."

One thing she learned when she was with Jacob, that she almost forgot in all the heartache and drama, was that if she listens to her body, good things happen. She listens now, and all she hears is the same thing it's always told her with Jacob: _this is right. This is safe._

She thinks about what she feels when she's with Edward, and it's as clear as a bell: _Get out, get out now, you're not safe, he's dangerous._

"Oh crap," she says, and hangs on tighter, digging her fingers into his skin and muscle.

He wraps his arms around her. "What is it, honey?"

"I think I might just be really, really dumb."

"I don't think so. I think you've just been confused, and I think it's mostly my fault for trying to make you do something you didn't want to do. I'm so sorry."

Bella climbs into his lap. "I understand why you did it. It's okay. I mean, don't do it again, but I forgive you and—"

She stops because his mouth is on hers, so hard she can't breathe. When she lifts her hands to his face, she feels hot tears under her palms.

"Jake," she gasps, pulling away. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Everything's awesome. You said 'don't do it again,'" he mumbles, and kisses her while he unbuttons her shirt. "That means _I_ get a second chance now."

Bella thinks about protesting that he's taking way too much for granted, but then she realizes her entire body is aching because it's been _so_ long since he touched her, since anyone human touched her (Charlie loves her but he doesn't touch). So instead she helps with the buttons, and throws her phone to the floor of the truck as she bares herself to him once more.  


**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This is what happens when you listen to Vampire Weekend's "I Think Ur a Contra" one too many times. Let it serve as a warning. :-) I had trouble with the ending, so cretin and audreyii_fic helped, and naranwien and WolfGirlAtHeart pre-read; my thanks to all of them.


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